It's Kinda Hard
by Swagger1354
Summary: Fairy Tail AU. In the school called Fairy Tail Academy, Lucy Heartifillia is waiting outside to confess her feelings to the one and only Natsu Dragneel, even when this was the first time Lucy met him. Yet Natsu doesn't even have a single clue what she is talking about. Well, the only thing Lucy can do is take one step at a time. Nalu story.
1. Try Hard Lucy

Chapter 1 – Try Hard Lucy

Authors' Notes: Okay guys, this is my first ever fanfic so I hope you enjoy it! Thank you for reading!

©Hiro Mashima's characters! It's all his.

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Spring has arrived. The weather as pleasant as always as the sakura petals were dancing in the air and approaching the grounds of Fairy Tail Academy, swiftly and very gracefully.

Fairy Tail Academy, it was just like any other school but only more laid-back and with a bad reputation because of some of the few students who were able to create a chaos and throw normality out of the window. But it was a good school with efficient education and it was only one of the few schools who offered lots of activities throughout the school year.

And here was Lucy Heartifilia in the field, nervousness taking over her yet very bravely waiting for the person she was going to show her true self and desires. "_There is still three minutes left till the appointed time I asked him to come out" _thought Lucy while pushing the door and racing in front of the mirror in the washroom.

_Ok you just have a few more minutes till he arrives there. _She told herself.

While standing in front of the mirror, Lucy was very pleased with what she was looking at. Her blond hair was in a high pony tail with her bangs falling loose in the front, she made sure she was wearing the proper Fairy Tail Academy uniform, the cream colored sleeveless sweater on top of her white t-shirt and making sure her red bow would fall on top of everything, which she had planned for so long. She patted her gray skirt which was only till thigh length, making sure there were no dirt visible.

She wanted everything to be perfect. One time, only one moment.

She walked back to the meeting point. She noticed that he wasn't there yet, checked her watched and then looked for the awaited person. _He must be held up in something. _ She looked around. It was the garden right next to the academy and a few meters away from the school pool. It was beautiful there and it was spring which intensified it.

"WHAHAHAHAH" she heard someone shout.

"Come back you bastard!" another voice screamed

"NEVER!"

Lucy stood up from gazing at the flowers to look at the sources of the voices. She then realized it was, _him, _Natsu Dragneel was storming straight at her direction while being chased by his friend, who regularly fought with him as per the rumors, Gray Fullbuster who was still very far away. _He finally came. _ She smiled but then started panicking as he came closer to her, trying to make herself look good even without the mirror. She noticed that he was holding some sort of cloth in his right hand, waving it around, while looking behind his shoulders to the direction of Gray and laughing mischievously.

"Give back my freaking underwear you idiot!" Gray screamed. Wait, did she hear that correctly? _Un-underwear? Does that mean he's nake- _Lucy then attempted to cover her eyes before she would regret watching the scene in the near future. But her hands weren't as fast as her eyes as she detected his privet area, yet still covered her eyes from embarrassment.

"Kaaayyyyy!" she squealed

Then suddenly she let out an "omf" as she was pushed down by something towards the ground. She didn't see what it was that brought her to that position because of her eyes which were still covered. She felt strong arms around her waist and recognized a face right under her breasts as she felt hot breath against her skin. Her face became red in response. _Oh my god! Who is this! This is so embarrassing. _Then the arms left her waist and the head lifted itself from her making Lucy let out a sigh out of relief.

"Dammit he will catch up to me" said what sounded like Natsu's voice.

She then peeked between her fingers and saw the pink-haired teenage look around cautiously. His body was still on top of her but didn't give much weight since he had his arms to support him. He then looked down to Lucy and stared at her for a while before standing up right._ Holy mother of god! It was him?! H-he was hugging me! _Lucy's brain was spinning as it was just too much for her to even have him so near. She was about to faint before a firm hand grabbed her arms and pulled her straight to stand properly without any effort.

"Uh sorry about that but I'm in a real hurry" he laughed

"U-uh" she could barely utter a word. It was too soon for her! She had no time to prepare. _What happened to the 'perfect confession'?_

"Yeah ok bye" he began to hurry off and stopped his tracks when Lucy tugged his shirt. "Wa-wait" _don't let him go now!_

"Yeah?"

"Um I think I left a note in the in your locker to meet me up at this place to tell you something important."

"Oh? That was you?" Lucy nodded her head "Oh, I thought someone was challenging to a fight but I was too tired to go today so I thought I'd ignore it" Lucy could just do nothing but feel her anger build up inside as he spoke. _Why would someone do that?! _She exclaimed in her head.

"Well, so you want a fight? Okay! Let's make it quick before he comes. Bring it on!" he called while pumping his fist in his hand.

"No that's no-"

"Ah! There you are! Get here you!" they saw Gray run towards them, finally wearing some sports tracks only shirtless to which Lucy could only sigh _That's an improvement, rather than being butt naked _she shivered as she recalled what had scarred her pure mind.

Natsu looked back and forth between Lucy and Gray. "Come on" he said not waiting for her response as he just he grabbed her wrist, pulled her and started running into the building. They ran past many occupied classrooms which was found out by Natsu always interrupting the lectures and telling them to just ignore them and continue. The chase was tiring Lucy out, she couldn't help but huff and breath heavily yet the fact that she was with Natsu was thrilling enough.

They then reached the nurse's office. It was her first visit here even though she already knew who the nurse was. She looked around her, noticing the 3 beds laid out and the medicines stacked in the shelves. She began looking for the nurse, Porlyusica, who she didn't find in the end. But she did see the girl in the desks working instead of Porlyusica, she noticed a young girl, maybe from middle school, with long open dark blue hair, unlike Levy who had light blue.

"Hey Wendy!" Natsu greeted.

"Oh! Hello Natsu-san and…" she drifted off while looking at me. Lucy opened her mouth to answer the young girl but was interrupted by Natsu very quickly as he said "Can we hide here? Gray is pretty pissed off about me taking away his underwear and now he's chasing me!" he explained with some humor.

"Oh ok yeah sure but be sure to leave before Porlyusica coms back, or else she'll drive not only you guys but also me!"

"Sure sure no worries!"

She smiled at Natsu and shifted her gaze to Lucy. They nodded to each other without making an introduction or conversation. Natsu walked to the window looking weather Gray was anywhere nearby. Then he looked back at Lucy and observed her to which Lucy couldn't help but fiddle around since she became the center of his attention.

"So, when do we fight?" he suddenly questioned

"It not about a fight or anything…I called you out for another reason." She told

"Eh? And what is that?"

She glanced at Wendy's direction and could see that her eyes were on her work but her ears were very attentive to their conversation. _A confession. _She couldn't say that now! Not while someone else is present in the room.

"Um..I don't feel comfortable talking about it here…" she stuggled

"Why not?" he straight forwardly asked, which made Lucy surprised.

"Um..it a-a confession" she whispered

"A what now?" it didn't seem that her voice was as loud as she thought.

She balled her fists and keeping them firm on her both sides _so what if someone's here? This is the only freaking chance._ "A confession" she spoke louder. Wendy brought her hands infront of her mouth, giving a 'awww' face while blushing and Natsu who stood infront of her just gave a clueless face.

"Huh? About what?"

Lucy could literary feel her jaw touching her floor as she heard him. How could he not know? Isn't he a normal teenager? She couldn't believe that someone couldn't understand her when she says 'confession'! _Even a middle schooler could understand what she meant!_ She heard Wendy giggle in her desk which confirmed that she was eavesdropping.

"About my feelings"

"Feelings? You wanna fight now?" _what? How did he come to that?!_

"No! Stupid! She is asking you out!" Wendy suddenly spoke up. Lucy turned her head towards the girl and gave her a thankful expression and she smiled giddily in returned.

"Yeah?" he looked at Wendy and then looked back at Lucy. She silently nodded. He just scratched his head and said "Why do you need me to go with you? I mean we were there outside and how is this anything to do with feelings". Lucy wanted to cry! This is becoming too hard for her, explaining romance is not only hard work but also embarrassing mainly when the person is her crush.

"Anyways, do I know you?" he asked

"Uh. Not personally but we've met before" he looked at her to explain further. "Yo-you saved me from the time when I almost got tricked by some guy"

"Eh?" Natsu looked her he with a confused face.

"Yea-" Lucy again got interrupted.

"Ha! Finally found you! Give it back you flame brain!" Gray suddenly shouted. Natsu spun his head towards the door and shot a look to Wendy "I told you to warn me when he comes!"

"I-I didn't notice him myself!" she cried.

Gray ran full speed at Natsu before Natsu positioned himself to a fighting stanza _why would he do that? _When they collided, a huge wind rushed to all directions which was caused by their impact. After the dust had cleared out she saw Natsu's face stuffed with ice and Gray's face stuffed with tobacco sauce. _WHAT THE HELL!_ Lucy wanted to shout but just stood there and looked dumb folded. She couldn't believe the scene in front of her. _Is this how they fight?_

"Eat this you shit head!" coughed Natsu

"Let's see how you survive this!" Gray spat.

They kept forcing their respected 'weapons' into each other's mouths. As they continued to do so, she looked towards blue haired girl and was about to ask weather this is something that happens regularly but stopped herself as she saw her calling someone on the phone. After her call ended, she stared at me and smiled "It's alright, help will come in a moment." She was confused by what she meant by that.

Lucy then heard fast pacing getting louder and louder outside the nurse's office, and then the next second saw the red haired president standing near the entrance with her hands folded. She was wearing the formal uniform with the red blazer with the gray skirt, she looked very smart and responsible that way. Lucy wanted to greet her with nice smile and try to finally get to know the famous and gorgeous president Erza Scarlet, but was taken aback when she sensed the atmosphere around her. She had a very stern look which was only directed to the two guys attacking each other with food items.

"Erza!" the girl known as Wendy finally called

"E-erza?" both stuttered in union and slowly rotated their face to the way where they could feel the anger of the female.

"I thought I told you to get along." She said slowly yet in a threatening manner. Suddenly both of them put their hands around each other's necks and started shaking hands. "of-f course we are!" they both chanted, this not only startled Lucy but also amazed her by how much power Erza had of these two teenage boys. She then gave both of them some bashing where Lucy could only see the scene move forward speechlessly. Although in many eyes it looked like two guys getting beaten up, for her it looked more like friends spending some time together. She was going to ask the young nurse helped to do something but was surprised that she just continued her work, ignoring the three like it was something totally normal.

"The both of you are going to come to the student council. Right now" Erza ordered while dragging them off out of the room. When Lucy rushed out to the door, stopped and saw what was happening in the corridor she could see that the two of them were trying to struggle out of her grip around their shirt collar but it was just a useless effort. Gray finally gave in muttering something like 'let's just get it over with' while Natsu was still trying his best. Lucy saw him get dragged off and sadly thought _There goes my chance. _She then saw Natsu stare at her for a second in deep though, so she lifted her hand and waved good bye with a forced smile.

"Wait Erza!" Natsu yelled in a sudden serious tone. Erza stopped her tracks and looked back down at Natsu waiting for him to continue. "Um, that blond chick right there" he pointed at Lucy for Erza to see "yeah I think she has something very important to tell me"

Erza then glanced at Lucy questionably while she saw Natsu trying to make her support his statement. "Oh yeah! I do!" she said.

"May I ask what?" Erza's question startled Lucy. Was she supposed to tell her? In front of all these people in the corridor? Lucy was getting very nervous and looked around for _anybody _to help her. When she finally looked at Natsu, he seemed to give her a encouraging smile which didn't make sense because he didn't understand why she was so flustered but made her heart calm down thinking that he is supporting her. She then walked towards Erza and taking her courage by whispering her real reason of talking to Natsu. Erza then watched Lucy's face while blushing and started to stutter. _Isn't much of a strong point is it? _ She thought to herself.

"O-o-kay..I mean yeah sure..take him if you want!" she stammered and loosened her grip on Natsu's shirt collar. Natsu jumped up to stand straight, gave a mocking face to Gray which seemed to annoy him a lot and then started to walk towards Lucy. Erza then started to walk away while Gray had a face saying 'unbelievable!'.

"Also Lucy!" she called out without turning. _How does she know my name?_

"Yes?"

She then turned her head and smiled "Good Lucy" to which Lucy smiled back.

"Wow" Natsu looking back at Erza "What did you tell her to get her to leave me alone" Lucy also then looked at the same direction and replied "Nothing much". Natsu looked like he was going to ask on but instead just looked her in amazement.

Then Natsu seemed to remember something "So" he said "what was it you were going to talk about again?"

"Oh, do you mind if we go outside in the garden?"

Natsu brought his hands behind his head and grinned "Sure why not?"

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Author's Notes : Going to upload the next chapter pretty soon! Please Review!


	2. Always Another Year

Chapter 2

"Oh I didn't catch your name properly!" he pointed out.

"O-oh, um my name is Lucy Heatifillia" she stuttered nervously.

"Luigi? What a funny name" Natsu exlaimed exclaimed.

"No, no it is Lucy" she corrected

"Yeah that's what I said! Luigi!"

"No, um it is Lucy, it is spelt L-U-C-Y" trying to contain herself. _Don't embarrass yourself in the first meeting!_

"I don't get it, it's the same thing"

"IT'S LUCY!" finally bursting out.

"Woah calm down!" he laughed while raising his hands up in defense "I was just kiddin' around! I got it. Lucy! No need to get all nervous around me! I was just trying to ease it up!" he laughed.

"Oh." She looked down at her shoes. _He was worrying about me. _She thought. "Thank you" she smiled brightly.

"Hm, Lucy Heartifillia eh? Well, nice to meet you I'm Natsu Drageneel"

_I already knew your name._ She sighed

"You seem like an interesting person. I mean you got through _Erza_! Although I don't know what it means to "go out"" he said while gesturing the quotes "And even though we are already outside in the garden the second time, I'll try to understand it and tell you what I think of it." He smiled with a confused face.

Lucy returned the gesture by smiling back, not only because of politeness but also because she was overjoyed by the fact that he is considering her, okay scratch that, he was trying hard to understand what it means to date when he didn't have the slightest clue (even when he was a high schooler). But, come on, just let this girl with one-sided feelings have some hope at least!

"But till then let's try to start off by being friends! Even though you are really weird, you seem very nice and fun." He encouragingly stretched out his hand for a handshake.

Lucy suddenly felt a pang of disappointment and pain as she heard the word "friend", _great! I've been friend zoned._ She sadly smiled at that thought. She thought she would get a straight answer today after gathering up all her courage to confess, even if it were a rejection she would be sad for the first few days or weeks or probably months but she knew she would get over it sooner or later.

But now it'll be harder.

_Well, at least we can start somewhere. _She tried to be optimistic even when she was still dissatisfied. Yet in the end she was still happy that she had a chance to get to know him better than just stare at him in the hallway always fighting and hanging around with his friends.

"You alright?" Natsu interrupted while lowering his hands down.

"Oh haha yeah I am! No worries!" she exclaimed, returning to reality.

He raised one of him eye brows and stared at her suspiciously for a while. They remained in silence for a while.

"You're pretty damn weird ya know?" he said.

Lucy blushed at the comment and thought _well, there goes my first impression_. "No I am not! And stop calling me that!" trying to fight back.

He grinned back widely. _Holy crap, he is so damn cute right now! _He raised his hands back up and asked "So what do you say?"

"Huh?"

"Friends or no friends?"

"OH! FRIENDS OF COURSE" Lucy called out. Then she realized that her volume was pretty high after peaking at his shocked reaction.

"Oh, I mean" cough "Yeah, sure, I mean like I'm cool with it as long as you are" she murmured by trying to act cool.

Surprisingly he caught on to what she said and replied "Awesome!"

Then she looked at Natsu and noticed that he still had his hands raised up for a handshake, then she looked back at his face which looked like he was expecting something. She then nervously brought out her hand and slowly got into his grip.

At first there was some sort of spark as the two skins touched each other and Lucy was sure that she wasn't the only one who felt it but knew that Natsu wouldn't understand how unique it was for her. Lucy couldn't help but feel very excited and couldn't stop her heart to pound at very fast rate. Natsu's hands felt very nice, firm and strong. She hasn't felt any safer before, ump until now and she had such an unimaginable urge to just jump on him and feel protected in his arms. She restrained herself from doing anything to make him feel uncomfortable, so she just pulled her hand back.

She then touched her hand with the free one and felt very special as she brought them close to her chests, she had some slight tint of pink on her cheeks and couldn't stop grinning. It was just like the first time she met him. A miracle.

Realizing how quiet it became around her, she looked back up and detected that Natsu's face was full of confusion. He just stood there silently and dumb folded, still looking at his hand, which was strange since she heard that Natsu was known to be very loud and always forced to be discreet even when it was useless effort. Only president Erza could pull something like that off, not Lucy, not someone who he just met for the first time.

Lucy didn't want to interrupt him since it looked like there was a lot going through his mind, so she just took the chance to get closer look at him. She always thought that his hair was only pink, but now that she was standing face to face and after a lot of observation, she concluded that it was salmon. It looked soft and silky and all rustled up making her want to just brush her hand through those locks. She gripped her hand to hold herself back. He had muscles but not as bulked as those wrestlers in TV programs. _Thank god!_ And his onyx eyes_, oh god those eyes_, were so brave as always and sometimes even idiotic which she found really cute were now blinking making him come back to his normal self.

"Oh ah" he muttered as raised his hand up to his head and ran it through his hair. He smiled to himself. Which for some reason also made her smile back.

Suddenly Lucy heard the school bell ring, indicating the end of school and start of summer holidays. Lucy looked at the ground sadly, hiding her face from the person opposite to her. _Wow, isn't that just great! Two months till I see him again when we just became friends today! Fuck! _She cursed to herself.

"Well, that's the last bell" he said making Lucy raise her head.

"Ha, yeah" she replied half-heartedly.

He tucked his hands into his pocket and smiled "Holidays are going to start so we'll not meet that often but if I see you on the streets or the city or anywhere, I'll surely come over to say hi!"

"Yeah sure! And I'll not forget to greet you in the hallways when we come back to school" she smiled happily hoping she didn't become too comfortable with the newly found friendship.

"Well, duh! That's what friends are for!" he grinned widely.

They smiled at one another for a while. She then noticed that her mobile just got a text, so she picked it up and read that Virgo was ready to pick her up from school.

She looked at Natsu apologetically "I'm sorry but I have to go right now"

"Oh okay, well it was nice to meet you again and I'll see you later then"

"Yeah"

Lucy was the first one to turn around and walked towards her classroom. After some distance, she looked back at his body climbing up the building to through his classroom window.

_Wai-wait what the- he's climbing!? _She stared in awe and could swear that her jaws were touching the ground right now. Then she could help but giggle at his action.

She went to her classroom to get her bag and headed toward the gate. While walking she heard a squeaking voice calling out her name, when she turned around she saw a little girl with light blue hair approach her.

"Levy!" she called out. As Levy reached her, she was carrying a whole load of books in her arms. Her curly hair today was tied up and she still had her reading glasses on which showed that she was reading just before going back home.

"Hey!" she jumped happily in front of her.

"Oh do you need help?"

"Yeah! Thank you!" she cried with relief.

Lucy took in half the amount of books in her hand and observed that these were only novels from the library. Then looked back at Levy, and realized that there were two men missing. _Hm, that's weird._

"Why are you carrying the books alone?" she asked

"Oh, yeah, well I was heading home together with Jet and Droy but then I just remembered that I didn't read any of the new books the school ordered for the library. So, I told them I'm going back to school to get them, even though they insisted on coming with, I went alone. I mean whats the use of them coming with when I just had to bring books." She explained.

As Levy went on with her explanation, Lucy noticed Natsu walking and laughing along with a group of his friends. It seemed like he just told them a joke while making a really funny face. Then somehow there broke out a fight between him and a black hair guy who became shirtless right after Lucy blinked. _Wow, he must be having some sort of talent or just some instinct to pull off something like that. _They kept cursing each other and making trouble to which the other people just laughed at but a red hair woman came in between and gave them both some bashing. _Way to go! Student Council President Erza!_ Lucy giggled.

"Yeah now I really regret telling them to go home, but I'm really happy you are here right now-" she stopped abruptly and saw that Lucy wasn't listening to her, Levy then followed at the direction Lucy was watching and saw a group of students walking back home, then started giggling.

"So anyways!" Levy coughed, making Lucy turn back to her "How did it go?"

Lucy wanted to ask what, then saw Levy's teasing smile and knew what she meant by that.

"Oh" she paused "Not that well, I think I got rejected."

"What do you mean "think"?" she asked.

Lucy then explained everything to her; him coming late, Gray chasing Natsu, Natsu taking her with him to hide , him not understanding what her confession was about, getting support from Erza, becoming friend zoned which indirectly meant rejection to her but meant meeting him a whole lot more and getting closer to him. Levy listened all the way quietly and not interrupting at any point. She then gave an apologetic smile when Lucy ended her story.

"He's as dense as before but still wanting to become friends" she said, sounding nostalgic "But oh man, I'm so sorry" she said

"Oh it's alright"

"But, look at the bright side! I mean he said that you "seem interesting and fun" look? Doesn't that sound promising?" she said optimistically.

"Yeah, you are right" she smile. She was really happy that she had a friend like Levy. Always understanding her and helping her. Like reading and always cheering for everything Lucy choses, like; her book, her confession and her decision on maybe getting out of that lonely home only with her and her father and finding a nice place to live.

"So, do you want to go over and talk to him?" she insisted

"Oh, no I don't want to interfere on his times with his friends before holidays." She replied

"What interfere?! I knew Natsu and all of them since childhood! I mean we just are in different classes, so we haven't talk for a while, sooo I can catch up with them and also squeeze you in so that you can spend more time with him" she suggested.

"Levy, I'm really happy you thought things through but I gotta pass this. I have to go home anyways"

"Oh okay, then can you and Virgo just drop me and these books at my house? I can't walk all the way alone" she asked

"Do you even have to ask?! I'm sure Virgo wouldn't mind at all."

"Thank you!"

They reached the main gates and saw Virgo standing patiently in front of the car. Lucy then waved from her position to show that she is coming and Virgo could enter the car until she reaches. They both opened the car doors at the same time and each sat on the different sides while the stacks of books balanced in the middle.

"Virgo, do you mind dropping Levy at her dorms?"

Before answering she just blankly stared at Lucy silently with her usual emotionless face and then says "Of course not, hime"

"Thank you, Virgo!" Levy smiled.

Virgo then started to start the engines of the car while Levy started to take one of the books from the top of the stack to which Lucy could only giggle at. She then turned towards the windows and stared out of her window. She then noticed Natsu go pass and only thought _Just look at me for the moment, please let me have that_.

Suddenly Natsu turned his head towards the car as if he knew what was in her mind, put his face close to the glass and stared curiously into the window, while for Lucy their faces were far too close before she could for comfort, if the glass wasn't there she would have pass out of blushing so much. For a while the two had some direct eye contact to which Lucy wanted to turn away but she just kept looking and smiled. He noticed it was Lucy so her waved goodbye and walked off with him friends.

"Oh. My. God!" Levy suddenly exclaimed.

"Wha-what, and weren't you just reading that book right now?" Lucy startled while trying to stop her face from becoming red, which didn't work.

"Finished it already but forget about that! He just waved at you! I mean like- you never were this close to him! I'm so proud Lucy!" she nudged Lucy's arms "maybe the chance of the two of you getting together _wouldn't_ take as long as I thought it would!"

"Really? It kind of sounds very a bit far-fetched.." She smiled while looking at her thighs.

"Of course! Who wouldn't love _you_!" she exclaimed.

Lucy grinned in response and looked back outside, she watched the landscape move and couldn't stop smiling idiotically. She was really happy and couldn't wait till the next semester started. She wanted to see him again and just stay beside him.

_Hope these two months of summer holidays won't take that long _she thought while smiling to herself.

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Thank you! Gonna update again soon!


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